Demanding the inclusion of hotel employees in the decree for the payment of unemployment benefits, due to the suspension of work for the winter, as well as speeding up the process of payment of benefits, hotel employees participated on Wednesday in the protest rally organized by the Cypriot of PEO (SYXKA-PEO) outside the Ministry of Labor.
The crowd held banners with slogans such as "We demand monthly payment of unemployment", "It was not our choice not to work, but the conditions of our pandemic forced it". A delegation of the Guild met with the General Director of the Ministry and handed him the resolution with the demands of the employees.
For his part, the General Director of the Ministry stated in the delegation of the Guild that the Minister of Labor will transfer the issue to the Council of Ministers and will inform them accordingly, according to what was announced after the meeting by the Secretary General of SYXKA, Neophytos Ttiminis.
As he stated in KYPE, the protest rally had been announced by the Guild several days ago and concerned the issues of Social Security, as thousands of workers in the hotel industry, especially in the provinces of Famagusta and Paphos, do not receive benefits. Although the protest had been announced, instead of the Minister calling the protesting group, he went outside the institutional framework with yesterday's meeting with the SEC, and the President of DISY to "exploit the issue for political, party benefits," he said.
He called on the Minister to remain within the institutional framework and added that "workers' problems are common to all workers and this industry does not need intermediaries or machine gods to solve the problems. We need dialogue and the Government and the Ministry to take the political decisions that will solve the problems of the employees ".
Answering a question from KYPE whether the Guild considers that its demands are met, after yesterday's announcements by the Minister of Labor, he stated that he, as General Secretary of the Guild, has no official information about what was agreed, apart from what was published in the media yesterday .
The problem with hotel workers arose from the fact that, due to the pandemic, they were unable to complete the necessary working time required to be entitled to unemployment benefit. At the same time, they are not covered by the plans announced by the Government for the suspension of works.
"We have been unpaid since November," Hara Spyrou, a hotel employee for 25 years, told KYPE. "It's not us who did not want to work. "Hotels were closed because of the coronavirus," he added.
The General Secretary of the Guild announced to the attendees that if their demands are not met or if "the scenario of making decisions behind our backs" is repeated, they will return with a new protest.